Lawo Notices Uptake in IP AV, Broadcast Control Solutions

Reporting an exceptional year 2019 in the Middle East, Lawo has seen its pioneering IP-based broadcast production video, audio and control solutions adopted by the region’s leading TV and radio broadcasters, with installations at, and firm orders from, major broadcasters throughout the territory. Large orders from private and public broadcasters in the United Arab Emirates, e.g. with infrastructure projects for Bloomberg and MBC Al-Arabiya, audio production installs for Sharjah TV, and video equipment orders from DMI were complemented with large-scale projects in Bahrain and neighboring countries: OB truck projects, dozens of radio studios and several MCR projects. In addition, Lawo is involved in large-scale projects in Egypt, Oman, and Saudi Arabia.

Turkuvaz Media Group, which owns television channels, radio stations, newspapers and magazines in Turkey, invested in a number of Lawo solutions for a major, company-wide upgrade to an IP ecosystem for its brand-new facility in Istanbul. The cutting-edge IP infrastructure includes a central Lawo router, several networked mc² mixing consoles, crystal radio consoles, and V__matrix C100 software-defined processing blades.

Installations across the region reflect the growing number and scale of broadcast installations in the Middle East, most of them based on demanding workflows. Lawo’s involvement in these Middle East projects confirms the German manufacturer’s growing momentum on a global scale. What started out as an audio console manufacturer for the German market exactly 50 years ago, has evolved into one of the leading IP broadcast solution providers of cutting-edge TV, radio and production installations worldwide. More and more broadcasters are coming round to the idea that new workflows, uncluttered user interfaces, and efficient resource pooling are best served with Lawo’s IP-native solutions.

“I think it is safe to say that Lawo is beginning to make a difference in the Middle East: both our audio products and our video and broadcast control solutions are in high demand,” says Klaus-Jörg Jasper, Sales Director Middle East, Lawo. “There is growing respect for our efforts to become a key technology partner for major international sports events like motorsports and world cups, and also music productions like the epoch-making “Sunrise” and “Sunset” sets of the British band Coldplay at Amman’s Citadel, Jordan, streamed live on YouTube to mark the release of the band’s new album, “Everyday Life”. A Lawo mc²56 mixing console processing 192 inputs was used for streaming and recording these events.”

In addition, Lawo has been, and currently is, involved in a growing number of large-scale IP infrastructure installations, like Andrews Hub in Australia where remote production came of age, Belgian DPG Media’s and Norway’s TV2 Lawo-powered ST2110 broadcast facilities spread over two cities, Europe’s largest ST2110 facility at SIC near Lisbon, and CBC Canada’s end-to-end SMPTE 2110 and ST2022-7 broadcast center in Montreal, one of the most ambitious on the planet. Other projects include the European Parliament, several other institutions and high-profile corporate installs in the US. All of the above are controlled by Lawo’s overarching, manufacturer-agnostic VSM IP broadcast control system, which keeps evolving as expectations literally skyrocket. This, in turn, benefits Lawo’s entire customer base.